The next Galactic core-collapse supernova (SN) is a highly anticipated observational target for neutrino telescopes. However, even prior to collapse, massive dying stars shine copiously in “pre-supernova” (pre-SN) neutrinos, which can potentially act as efficient SN warning alarms and provide novel information about the very last stages of stellar evolution. We explore the sensitivity to pre-SN neutrinos of large-scale direct dark matter detection experiments, which, unlike dedicated neutrino telescopes, take full advantage of coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering. We find that argon-based detectors with target masses of O ( 100 ) tons (i.e., comparable in size to the proposed ARGO experiment) operating at sub-keV thresholds can detect O ( 10 – 100 ) pre-SN neutrinos coming from a source at a characteristic distance of ～ 200 ? ? pc , such as Betelgeuse ( α Orionis). Large-scale xenon-based experiments with similarly low thresholds could also be sensitive to pre-SN neutrinos. For a Betelgeuse-type source, large-scale dark matter experiments could provide a SN warning siren ～ 10 hours prior to the explosion. We also comment on the complementarity of large-scale direct dark matter detection experiments and neutrino telescopes in the understanding of core-collapse SN.
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